1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video camera and, more particularly, to an improved video camera by which the operation of displaying a photographed object on the screen of an image medium in a rotated state can be achieved easily.
2. Description of the Related Art
A video camera forms an optical image of a photographed object on an image pickup device, which is an internally installed solid state image pickup device such as a charge-coupled device, and converts the optical image into an electric signal to then be reproduced on the screen of an image medium such as a television or the like.
An example of such a video camera is schematically illustrated in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, there is provided a lens mount 3 in one side of a main body 2 of the video camera 1 and a lens group 4 is installed within the lens mount 3. A supporting member 6 is fixed at one end of the lens mount 3, as shown in FIG. 2 which is a cross-sectional view of a portion "A" in FIG. 1. An image pickup device 5 where an optical image of the photographed object formed by the lens group 4 is formed is fixed in the supporting member 6. Therefore, the image pickup device 5 maintains a fixed state with respect to the lens mount 3. The optical image of the photographed object formed on the image pickup device 5 is converted into an electric signal to be reproduced on the screen of an image medium such as a television or the like.
Meanwhile, when a photographer desires to photograph an object with the video camera having the aforementioned configuration, for a characteristic screen construction, the object can be displayed on the screen of the image medium in a rotational state with a predetermined angle. For this purpose, conventionally, in the case of a lightweight portable video camera, the photographer holding the video camera may lean to the side or rotate the video camera itself.
Accordingly, the image pickup device integrally installed in the video camera is maintained in a rotational state with respect to the object so that the photographed object is displayed on a screen in the rotated state by the rotation angle of the image pickup device. Moreover, in the case of a large video camera such as those used at television studios which cannot be rotated manually, the video camera must be rotated by using a complex mechanism having a robot structure.
However, according to the above manual photographing methods, it is difficult to attain a desired predetermined angle and to maintain the same rotation angle for a period of time, and may result in a flickering of the photographed object on the screen. Also, in order to rotate large video cameras, a complex mechanism is necessary, which requires an additional cost and a spacious area. Thus, a versatile photographic operation is hard to achieve.